Life's Catalyst
by He will knock four times
Summary: cat·a·lyst ˈkad(ə)ləst/ noun a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change. He had rejected her, sent her away and she hated him as much as she loved him. Now, he wants her back and Seras wants to decide if she wants to speed up or remain the same. AXS (Rewrite for "Submit to me")
1. Chapter 1

It wasn't a dreadful existence, and if someone were to ask, it wasn't an unhappy one either, come to that.

She just did exist.

She had sporadic moments of that bubbling feeling inside she had remembered from long ago that was identified as happiness. Yet there was nothing that could be said her 'life' was exciting or even really all that worth much. If someone were to ask Seras, and she bothered to answer truthfully, Seras felt that the whole of her life has become nothing but a very fine example of what ennui means. Ennui, a state of despondency stemming from a lack of purpose.

Which was really the entirety of the problem to begin with. Years ago, nearly a complete lifetime really, she had been naïve and less bitter. Thirty-four years to contemplate abandonment in solitude could do a lot to a person. Seras had felt that it had done everything and more.

Six months after the end of the final battle with Millenium, Seras had finally become comfortable in her skin. She had accepted her nature some months before, she drank blood consistently, no hesitation, and her master had even started taking an interest in training her. It had all been going so well. Walter and Sir Integra were well. London was being rebuilt. She had even heard the announcement on the radio that families were moving back. It all looked like things were being fixed back then and things were looking very bright to her.

Alucard banishing her in the way that he had had devastated her.

She had loved him, and he tossed her away like she meant nothing. Like all those years working together, had meant nothing. What was worse, was her obsession still thrived, and it had to be an obsession. It just had to be because how could she be masochistic enough to still love him after what he had done? So it must be an obsession. She hated him at much as she loved him then, and she still did now. She would have thought that last night at the Hellsing estate would have stopped her feelings for him. Or the painful years afterwards.

They didn't. They never faded. His abandonment left behind inside her a jagged edged divot, like a bloody sweater, unraveling at the edges. Not a hole, because that would imply there was nothing left to feel with and back then, Seras had felt everything so very keenly. It was a pain of the sort that was felt throughout.

Her first two years were a sort of hell on their own. She still thought human. She still needed people and she felt so alone. At the same time, that aching grief caused by Alucard made her withdraw to herself for an entire year. She went so long without talking to people that she was no longer sure how to. Talking itself, yes, normal conversation she became out of practice with. The attempts she made were rebuffed as people looked at her, sensing something about her bearing and manner were off. Eventually, she couldn't bear to keep trying. She couldn't take more rejection. So she stopped trying to relate to humans.

She felt despair and grief for a while before she eventually managed to level out to something approaching that was neither. She even hunted humans by then. Had to, blood banks were more trouble than needed. She had tried at first with them and often went hungry. Eventually she justified it with criminals and drank well but sparingly. Only once a week. Then it was corrupt business people she felt had done someone wrong every few days, and from there she slid down into the dark where the lines blurred and she no longer cared. She shut down, stopped feeling altogether and became hollow.

She just wanted anything to fill that hollow. When she drank from a human, she took something of them with her. Emotions, thoughts, languages, memories, skills. These things could fill something in her for a short time, but ultimately left her feeling unfulfilled in the long-term. She would need more. Bitter, angry, and often going days without caring what happened to her, there was a trail of dead left behind in her wake. She loathed herself because she no longer remembered how to create. She just knew how to kill and destroy.

Her tears had run dry by the second year, and her empathy dried out by the third. By the time she was eight years in, the Seras that stood in her place was a very different creature indeed who hardly remembered her old life. She was just detached and clinical about everything.

Of all things to save her from sliding down to the bottom from where no one would be able to save her, it was a painting. It was some artist or another, she couldn't even remember his face or his name. she hadn't cared at the time. He was covered in paint and carrying heaving canvas and a bag with him through alleyways. Humans not afraid of shortcuts late at night really were the best meals. In her fifteenth year of freedom, Seras hadn't wondered if he had a family or any hopes or dreams as she stalked him, waiting for the right moment.

She was just captivated by the idea of what emotion she would get to feel when she bit down. What would his last thoughts be? Perhaps a girlfriend or boyfriend, or maybe he would think of a relative. His last emotions? The last ones weren't always fear or regret. It left her curious, in an absent sort of way. Would she see a valued memory of his? Would he struggle? Well, of course he would, all of them had, but would he really put up a good fight? Good, for a human that is. He would be taken unawares after all. How well could he fight if he wasn't prepared? Yet when he turned a corner and she struck, it was she who was taken aback.

She sank her teeth in, squeezing his windpipe to silence him, and generally ignoring his struggles when her favorite part started. Blood, was something of a contract. Taking it meant taking part of the person. She started feeling his emotions and wasn't that delightful? It was so delightfully new because for once there wasn't any panic or begging, and he wasn't scared, he was angry. He was outraged because he knew he was going to die and he felt cheated of all the things he was never going to get to paint. It wasn't until she started drinking more that it happened.

She saw color. She saw color as he saw it. Thousands of vibrant never ending hues paraded past her eyes twisting into shapes he had imagined to one day put to canvas. Somewhere in the color she found emotions that came from creating, something so very unlike what she was used to anymore. All she knew how to do anymore was ruin things and people and this… She had to have more. She bit down harder and drank greedily until it was all over. She let him drop to the ground with a heavy thump and leaned against the wall, preparing for the normal relaxed, lassitude that came over her after a good meal.

But it didn't.

Instead her skin felt twitchy and she stared at her hand that wouldn't stop shaking. How unusual. How new! Then, things became even stranger. Her face was wet. She swiped at it with her pointer finger and saw it. Not entirely able to believe it, she found a nearby window for her reflection.

And yes, there-

She examined the wetness sliding down her face with intense fascination. Crying? Her? After all these years when she had become certain that there was nothing left that could induce her to it? She had become certain that she no longer knew _how_ to cry to the point that Seras had become certain she no longer had enough heart left to be capable of it.

And the colors! The colors remained! She could still see them as he saw them. Perhaps not as vividly but they reminded her of the ones She vaguely remembered when she had been alive. The colors she saw at night were always muted tones of black, and gray, with pale blues and whites. It wasn't that she couldn't see in color, she did in fact see yellows and reds and greens but they were always darkened by night. But now, now, she looked at the world and could see them so brightly if she so chose.

This bore exploring. She glanced behind her at his tepid remains and he eyes caught the covered canvas and messenger bag he had been carrying. Slowly, as if approaching some holy relic, she leaned down and unfolded the cloth covering the canvas. Her hand was shaking again, she noted.

It was just the face of a woman taken from her back as she peeked over her shoulder at the viewer, her hair tumbling over her eyes. It was the eyes that made Seras begin crying. They held it all there, everything she was. The eyes looked blankly out at the canvas and Seras finally understood that was what she had become. Empty, hollowed out by her grief and despair and darkness. It was a revelation and she felt a sort of relief at having identified what she was even if it was nothing. And then she saw the pencil lines and understood something else.

The painting wasn't finished. It had started with a rough pencil sketch and then slowly the colors were filled in. But it wasn't complete. And then, at that moment, she felt something else, sorrow for another person. Empathy, another ability she had thought lost to her. His life's work was painting. She understood that because it was a part of her at the moment and this painting; he would never finish it. Her hands itched to do something. For a moment she didn't know what.

She didn't know what possessed her at that moment but she set up his easel and got out his paints and with the skills she had absorbed from him, she made something rather than destroying. Tiny thin strokes, broad sweeps, and the colors! She was possessed. She took her time and finally, at four in the morning she stepped back and saw what it had become.

Seras never looked back after that. She spent months painting and felt her emotions unlocking themselves. She could feel something after all this time. She stopped killing when she fed. She only needed enough to eat anyways, and now, she had painting to fill her. She traveled constantly, looking at art and feeling as if she was in a renaissance. A renewal of herself. She began signing her work on the back. She never kept them. Any of them. Except the woman. That one she kept and would never get rid of.

With the unlocking of her emotions and ability to be ambitious, Seras discovered other desires she had given up. She wanted to travel to see the world and not just for art. So she did. Bangkok, Belarus, Taiwan, Germany, Poland, America, China, Japan, the artic circle, her destination was based off of whims and fancy. She could go out into the day provided she wore the right clothes and ate enough. She felt like a student of life, watching humans bustle to and fro, going about their life. And she was getting quite the lesson as she explored on how to be alive, to feel alive, regardless of the fact that she was dead. That was just a technicality. And she was painting, always painting what she saw. And, she, in turn began to feel alive as well.

So it wasn't dreadful, and she was beginning to think that it would be quite wonderful.

She would just need a lot of paint.

Xxxxxxxxxx

So this first chapter turned out vastly different than how I imagined it might. I think the first two chapters are going to be purely about Seras and her experiences over time, covering those thirty years. Additionally, I've found that my characterization of Seras has changed quite a bit from how the original version of this story went. Also, I changed the title because it feels like the story's direction changed as well. I think if you squint, this is submit to me hahaha. It's still Alucardxseras, there is still a fledgling added into the story, and Seras still fights against Alucard. Let me know what you guys think.

-HWKFT


	2. Chapter 2

Lifes catalyst ch 2

Seras felt that, on reflection, she should have known it all wouldn't last long.

With her revived zest for life and rediscovered emotions she did anything and everything. Whatever struck her fancy or made her feel an emotion, because really after so long feeling nothing it was exciting to feel something. Whatever made her excited, or happy, or frightened, disgusted, intrigued; she did it, just to experience it. Sometimes more than once. It all was mundane things at first and then it escalated over time as the mundane stopped eliciting emotional responses from her.

Sight-seeing, kayaking, rock climbing, caving, Sky diving, singing, acting on stage, learning magic tricks, high fashion clothing, ballet, parties, raves, alcohol, stronger alcohol, gambling on horses or dogs, cocaine (but just the once as it didn't really do anything but make her slightly buzzed and bored), poker, regular theft, art theft (she just stole it and then left it outside the museum).

Then she discovered haunts for vampires and things really took off as she started participating in their fight rings. She learned to fight and even started practicing her vampire abilities. The others showed her some tricks and skills they had picked up. She didn't belong though, she knew that, and never stayed long enough to grow attached.

And art. Everywhere she went, and she went everywhere except England, Ireland, Scotland, and Italy, she was always doing art in addition to her other experiences. Pottery lessons in Japan, glassworks and metal smiths in America, Carpentry in India, textiles in south America, charcoal and pencil drawing in France, masonry in Rome, creating musical instruments in China. She painted, and sawed, and drew, and crafted. She even learned to cook until she mastered it.

The problem, Seras felt, was that went you spent nineteen years cramming in as much living in every single day as much as possible, you began to run out of new things to do. She'd once spent two entire months watching every film she could get her hands on. Then there was the five months where she listened to hundreds of thousands of songs while painting, doing little else. Then there was that semester in college, just to see what it was like. She'd discovered botany two years ago and had been fascinated with it until three months ago when it all started losing its appeal.

Sometimes she would jump off of tall buildings to create the feeling of skydiving and then catch herself at the last minute. The fall used to elicit this rush of joy and freedom. Now she enjoyed the fall but it was so standard and she knew it wouldn't kill her. She found activities and hobbies and things to learn or see but they eventually lost her interest. She was beginning to feel tired again. A sort of lassitude that made her terrified because this was the sort of listless state she felt that lasted eight years with her not caring about anything, including herself.

Seras didn't know what could be done about it though. She'd done and learned most things, more than most people did in a lifetime and in only twenty years of living. She'd learned languages the normal way even though she could learn it by drinking some blood. She had experienced a thousand different delights and terrors but now she didn't feel any of that. She felt tired and run out. Now she just read, and painted and wondered what to do with her time.

It felt like her slide down into the darkness had been paused, rather than stopped, that her being a student in life had been a temporary reprieve now coming to an end. Things didn't excite, frighten, or even interest her as much anymore. The only difference with this being that she didn't lose her emotions this time. This time she could feel anger, hatred, sadness. Creating art helped, but not by much. She felt short tempered more often than not. Manic in a way because she would feel angry and then immediately sad afterwards and then back too mad. Going mad. She must be.

How else was she to describe this sense of emptiness and lack of purpose? Perhaps that was it. She lacked purpose. Or maybe this is what happened to immortals. They spent decades living and became bored. Seras was beginning to realize that it all ran out in the end and that she was just what was left. She had done everything else in life. Art, music, clothing, gambling, crime, even religion just to try it.

Overtime it began to occur to Seras that there were things she had yet to do.

After that first year of banishment she had tried and failed to connect with other people. Her social skills too out of practice to help her achieve any meaningful connection, so she had given up and had never tried to reach out again. Thirty-one years after being banished, it finally occurred to Seras that for all her accomplishments and life experiences, she still had nothing because there was no one to share them with. No friends, no comrades, no purpose. It was a lonely and narrow sort of life.

She thought this over and realized what she would do. A fledgling. Someone to train and share her life with. Someone to make more with. She began to feel true excitement at this. A fledgling wouldn't be just a hobby she could get bored with. It would be a real person with thoughts and emotions, always changing. The training she could give as well!

Seras spent five months looking for someone who felt right. She wouldn't just take the first person she saw. They had to be suitable. It wasn't until she had been looking for her dinner one night that she found Moira.

Back up against a wall and looking determined, the girl had been fighting her attacker and, for the most part, appeared to be winning. Seras watched this girl, a young woman really at twenty-two, and felt like she was looking at herself. Then the man grabbed a knife and struck her in the abdomen on the left side. Seras winced. Liver. Fatal in minutes. Still the girl continued to fight. Pondering it over, Seras decided this was the person she wanted.

She killed the man and offered the girl a new life.

Seras had never been more delighted to hear the word 'yes' than in that moment.


End file.
